Australia’s premier extreme metal merchants celebrated their seminal 2012 album 'Hate' with a triumphant show on Saturday January 14 at Forum, Melbourne.
Maybe it’s just growing up, but god damn, it’s always such an odd experience when an album that has been such a monumental aspect of your life and identity comes up to a 10-year anniversary. It comes with a wealth of different emotions and memories, normally starting out with the brief panic of, ‘shit, has it really been ten years?” before leading into a flurry of nostalgic memories and feelings of what you felt when that album was first released.
Thy Art Is Murder’s Hate is one of those albums.
Keep up with the latest music news, festivals, interviews and reviews here.
Prior to its release in 2012, I was a meagre Year 10 student with an affinity for metalcore; clean choruses and pretty ‘tumblr’ inspired lyrics; Hate changed that. As one of the best death metal albums to come from the mid-2000’s ‘Myspace’ era of deathcore acts, Hate honed in on technicality and complexity, as opposed to just trying to be ‘edgy’, as so many of Thy Art’s peers were at the time. Instead, it dripped with authenticity, no matter if CJ was screaming misanthropic views on politics, the environment or his perception of self, it was presented with a sense of earnestness that many found it easy to resonate with.
A decade on, Hate is still adorned by many extreme metal enthusiasts around the world as one of the best death metal albums of all time, making it fairly unsurprising that the announcement of Thy Art’s 10th Anniversary shows for the album, was met with incredible excitement from local punters (and immense envy from international fans).
Naturally, that excitement was only further enhanced when it was also announced that the tour’s lead support act would be none other than the kings of the aforementioned mid-2000’s deathcore scene, Whitechapel. Having ushered in quite a dramatic change to their sound on 2019’s The Valley, their set was certainly divisive, being mainly dominated by newer material that older fans appeared less engaged with. Opening with the sombre yet anthemic, ‘When A Demon Defiles a Witch’, Whitechapel performed with precision, effortlessly flowing between epileptic inducing blastbeats to arena-inspired singalongs. ‘Forgiveness Is Weakness’ stood out due to Alex Wade and Ben Savage’s unrelenting guitar output, as did the rapid tempo and epic gutturals on display in the group’s newer single ‘Lost Boy’.
However, it was the surprise appearance of 2008’s ‘This Is Exile’ that really struck a chord with the crowd, with moshers (and filmers) immediately going into a frenzy when Phil brutally exclaimed the song’s notorious opening line. Considering 2023 also marks the 15th anniversary of ‘This is Exile’, and Whitechapel were already performing on an anniversary tour, many crowd members were certainly hoping for more old material to appear in the group’s setlist, meaning the surprise appearances of ‘This Is Exile’ and ‘The Saw Is The Law’ had the vast majority in awe.
Even though it had already been announced that Thy Art would be performing Hate in full, it still felt so abnormal seeing the group open with ‘Reign of Darkness’. As one of the band’s most popular hits, it’s a song that you’d normally expect to see as an encore (if you’re lucky), but, considering it’s the first song on the album, it’s placed there for a reason. From the grimy, building guitar harmonics to CJ’s immense gutturals, it was a track destined to be an opener, in particular this time around, with the group’s use of on stage pyrotechnics adding a huge emphasis to the songs already colossal output. ‘The Purest Strain of Hate’ has always been a crowd (and personal favourite), but definitely isn’t a song that you’d always expect Thy Art to bust out in every live set, so as you can imagine, the crowd was incredibly receptive from the moment the opening drum roll kicked in. For anyone who is familiar with Hate as an album, you’d be pretty aware that ‘The Purest Strain of Hate’ is packin’ one of the toughest breakdowns ever. Still, I wasn’t prepared for the jaw-dropping effect of it this time around, with CJ’s lingered screams, the bent notes of the breakdown and Jesse Beahler’s double bass drums combining together to create a room shaking effect. As a song ruled by its constant changes in tempo, ‘Vile Creations’ upped the ante even further. Having previously been a ‘pit warrior’ the last time I’d seen this track live, I must have been moshing too hard to fully pay attention, but this time around, I couldn’t take my eyes off the group’s bassist Kevin Butler, who’s impressively fast basslines, and all-round ability absolutely left me in awe.
View this post on Instagram
Having seen the group a handful of times, I can honestly vouch that they have never delivered a sub-par performance of ‘Shadow of Eternal Sin’, but something about it just time around really stood out as extra special. Maybe it was the pyro’s, maybe it was the ancient styled statues that surrounded the stage at The Forum enhancing the gloomy theme of the song, I’m not sure, but that final breakdown was delivered in the most memorable fashion I had ever seen.
With songs like ‘Reign of Darkness’, ‘The Purest Strain..’ and ‘Shadow of Eternal Sin’ all being long running crowd favourites, it was no surprise that the crowd was absolutely adorning these songs being performed live. However, possibly the most unique part of the set was seeing the song’s that maybe hadn’t been regarded as hits at the time, but along the years have become favourites for many. This is a statement that stands up as especially true for ‘Dead Sun’, which hasn’t been a consistent part of a Thy Art set for quite a while now, but going forward I imagine it will be, with the brutal off-cut garnering one of the wildest responses of the night. As did the album’s closer ‘Doomed From Birth’, which gave way to a frenetic mosh as people tried to stay in time with the machine gun style of the song’s rhythm.
Rounding out the night with one single off each of the three albums to follow Hate, the group returned for an encore, busting out ‘Deathsquad Anthem’, ‘Holy War’ and ‘Puppet Master’, with each song seemingly attaining an even louder cheer than its predecessor.
Stopping for a brief moment to connect with the crowd, CJ upheld the aforementioned earnest authenticity that the group have become known for by telling a quick anecdote, informing the crowd that, “When we made Hate, we were just a couple of scumbags from Western Sydney. We took ourselves and spent all the money that we could afford to get to New Jersey and record. We left our jobs and made no money, we literally left everything for this album.”
“This album means everything to us, and I’m sure it does to you as well- because you keep coming to see us, and you keep bringing your c*nt mates and your c*nt mates girlfriend, who is also a c*nt, but she buys you a beer, so you come again the next time. And for that we thank you.”
And whilst it was a sincere thank you, it was quite evident that most people in the crowd felt that it was Thy Art Is Murder who were the ones deserving of gratitude.
